Marty Denzer/Key photo Sister of Charity of Leavenworth associate Therese Horvat and Sister Sharon Smith share a laugh with Sister Joan Sue Miller as she reads from the most recent quarterly SCL magazine.

The motherhouse campus has watched over 150 years of religious vocations.

"Well, this is a graced place," said Sister Joan Sue Miller, community director. The Kansas City, Mo., native attended the former St. Therese Little Flower School and Bishop Hogan High School. Within six weeks of enrolling at St. Mary College, "I knew I wanted to join the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth," she recalled. "Being in a setting of study, quiet and spirituality, as a Catholic kid, I couldn't help but consider the religious life. I found I loved it. Rubbing shoulders with the community, it was as though their lives became mine in a way."

There have been challenges along the way, she said. "The past is always there to remind us of how far we've come and how far we can still go. Loving and healing the world is still our urgent vocation as SCLs."

The Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth trace their roots back to the teachings of Sts. Vincent DePaul and Louise de Marillac, who in 17th century France, founded the Daughters of Charity, the first community of vowed religious women to minister to the poor outside cloistered convent walls.

In the fledgling United States, Elizabeth Ann Bailey Seton, a widow with five children, established a small boarding school for girls in 1808 in Baltimore. A year later, in the spring of 1809, she wrote to a friend that she was forming a group of "apostolic women who choose to lead a religious life devoted to the education of poor children in the Catholic faith." She also hoped to receive many "spiritual daughters."

On March 25, 1809, Elizabeth pronounced vows of chastity and obedience to Archbishop John Carroll for one year, and was given the title, "Mother."

The American Sisters of Charity united with the French Daughters of Charity in 1850. By that time, Vincentian and Setonian teachings had spread to congregations in other parts of the country. In 1812, a community of Sisters of Charity formed at Nazareth, Ky., under the leadership of Bishop John Baptist David and Mother Catherine Spalding to minister to Catholic families on the frontier.

As a young woman, one of the sisters, Ann Ross, had tried to explain to her father her desire to serve the people of God. His response was a snorted, "What can a woman do?" In 1851 six sisters withdrew from the Nazareth community to establish the Sisters of Charity of Nashville, Tenn., under the leadership of Mother Xavier (Ann) Ross.

In 1858, finding themselves facing debts they had not incurred, Mother Ross, the superior of the Nashville community, traveled to St. Louis at the instigation of Jesuit priest and explorer, Pierre DeSmet, where she met Jesuit Bishop John Baptist Miege, whose jurisdiction was the Indian Territory east of the Rocky Mountains, including the new state of Kansas. The sisters sold all they had to pay off their debts and with Mother Ross, the little band of sisters arrived in Leavenworth on Nov. 11, 1858.

Within a week, they were teaching at a boy's school. Within a few years they had established an academy for girls, an orphanage, and in 1864, a hospital. The first woman in the western territory to run a hospital was Sister of Charity of Leavenworth Joanna Bruner, who by historical accounts weighed more than 300 pounds and had a heart as big as she was.

In 1870, the sisters moved the motherhouse from downtown Leavenworth to a site in Muncie land, just south of town, and established St. Mary's Academy at that location. In 1923, St. Mary's Junior College was established, expanding to a four-year college in 1930. St. Mary's Academy closed in 1950. The college became a coeducational, residential university in the late 1980s, and is now located on the motherhouse complex site.

By the 1870s, the congregation had grown and spread to reach into Colorado, Montana, Wyoming and California. The congregation in Wyoming left in 1900, but the Montana communities flourished.

A congregation was established in Talara, Peru, in 1963. The first Peruvian native entered the Talara novitiate in September 1981.

And the community continues to grow. The challenges of the frontier have morphed into challenges of connecting with tech savvy young women and encouraging their joyful spirits and can-do attitudes, said Sister Sharon Smith, vocations director. In the last five years the community has seen a renewed interest in the religious life, and experienced a 20 percent growth in sisters in formation.

Sister Sue Miller recalled that when she was growing up, "we were trained to pray for vocations. I remember saying three Hail Marys every night for vocations. And parents encouraged their children to become priests and nuns. That was one reason for big Catholic families, I think."

Sister Sharon said, "Today's families may be reluctant to encourage religious vocations in their children, thinking it might be a lonely life. That's not true, it's a very rewarding life, but 21st century culture doesn't support religious vocations."

There are also many more ways for women to serve the church as a lay person than there were in the past, Sister Sue said, both in leadership and staff roles, as well as teachers and health care providers.

"It's important to know that young women are still being called to the religious life. We get a couple of inquiries a month," Sister Sharon said. "And we have had eight young women in formation since 2005, both in the United States and at the convent in Chuschi, Peru. Religious life is still viable and life-giving."

From the time a young woman enters the community, it takes six to nine years before she makes her final profession as a Sister of Charity of Leavenworth, Sister Sharon said.

Sister of Charity of Leavenworth Veronica Marie (Anna Marie) Brost entered the community in 1932, along with her younger sister Teresa, who took the name Sister Mary. Another sister, Marie Elizabeth had already entered the community, and become Sister Mary Peter.

Sister Veronica, now 102, who recently celebrated her 75th Jubilee as a Sister of Charity, served as a teacher, a cook and a leader in congregations in Kansas, Colorado and Montana.

Sister Sue said, "A few days ago, the community archivist called me to wish me a happy Monday and tell me that there are 960 Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth in heaven. With 320 SCLs living that's almost 1,300 vocations since 1858. And we have 225 lay associates. In some ways we are still a frontier community. We are very close to the laity here in the Midwest."

Therese Horvat, a SCL lay associate and editor of the quarterly publication, "Voices of Charity," said social justice issues are prominent in the charisms of the congregation, including the preferential option for the poor.

Sister Sharon said that "The young women who enter our community have been touched by our charisms of friendliness and openness to the mission experience. We respond to a need, wherever it may be. They see themselves as wanting to be a part of something bigger than themselves."

The Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth have partnered with a newly formed community in Haiti, the Sisters of St. Antoine of Fondwa, "to help build a better Haiti." Sister Claudette Prevot, a St. Antoine sister from Haiti, is on a scholarship attending the University of St. Mary studying management and accounting.

As the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth prepare to celebrate their sesquicentennial they list their sponsored ministries as Mount Saint Vincent Home in Denver; the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth Health System, which sponsors nine hospitals and four clinics for the uninsured in California, Colorado, Montana, and includes St. Francis Hospital in Topeka, Providence Health Center in Kansas City, Kan., and St. John Hospital in Leavenworth.; St. Mary University with campuses in Leavenworth and Overland Park, Kan., and the sisters' newest ministry: Cristo Rey Kansas City High School in Kansas City, Mo.

Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth serve in the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph at Cristo Rey High School, St. Peter School and St. Pius X High School in Kansas City, St. Ann School in Independence, Seton Neighborhood Center, St. Joseph Health Center, Truman Medical Center, Lee's Summit, and House of Menuha retreat center in Kansas City.

The sesquicentennial celebrations kicked off with a pancake feast on Founders Day, Nov. 11, 2007, and will continue through November 2008. Local communities are planning events to commemorate the anniversary. Some of the events include a play written by Van Ibsen, chair of the University of St. Mary theater department, titled, "What Can a Woman Do?" which spotlights the past, present and future through the eyes Mother Xavier Ross, whose father scoffed at her vocation to a religious community. It will be performed on March 16 at the Folly Theater in Kansas City, Mo.

"We don't have a fear of the future," Sister Sue said. "We love to see growth, and younger women entering the religious community. Youth attracts youth."

Sister Sharon nodded and said the challenge the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth face today is to be open to the Holy Spirit and the realities of the next 150 years.

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